Obama uses mosque visit to counter Trump

It may have been President Barack Obama’s first visit to an American mosque, but his appearance at the Islamic Society of Baltimore on Wednesday was just the latest stop on Obama’s anti-Trump tour.

Citing instances of “inexcusable political rhetoric against Muslim Americans that have no place in our country,” Obama sought to show solidarity with a community that has been thrust into the campaign debate over national security.

Story Continued Below

“We’re one American family, and when any part of our family starts to feel separate or second-class or targeted, it tears at the very fabric of our nation,” Obama said. “It’s a challenge to our values, and that means we have much work to do.”

For most of his national political life, Obama has been been dogged by rumors that he’s a Muslim, and he’s declined to visit an Islamic place of worship in the U.S. until now. But calls by some Republican presidential candidates, most prominently Donald Trump, to bar all Muslims from entering the country or to impose other religious tests on refugees seem to have stirred the president to action after seven years of ignoring appeals from American Muslims to visit a mosque. A day earlier, White House press secretary Josh Earnest predicted that the visit would arouse “some controversy.”

Earnest added that the speech would likely “prompt exactly the kind of discussion and debate that the president thinks is worth having.”

Trump, asked about Obama's speech on Fox News Wednesday evening, couldn't resist taking a crack at the president. "Maybe he feels comfortable there," Trump said about the mosque visit, reviving the "birther" controversy he fanned in 2011.

In his address earlier Wednesday, Obama mocked opponents who have criticized his reluctance to use terms like “radical Islamic terrorism” to describe groups like ISIL and Al Qaeda.

“If I would simply say these are all Islamic terrorists, then we would actually have solved the problem now, apparently,” Obama said, adding, “The best way for us to fight terrorism is to deny these organizations legitimacy and show that in the United States of America we do not suppress Islam.”

At the same time, Obama said, it’s important to acknowledge “the truth” that there is “an organized extremist element that draws selectively from Islamic texts” and twists them to justify killing.

He added, “There is a battle of hearts and minds that is taking place right now, and American Muslims are better positioned than anybody to show that it is possible to be faithful to Islam and part of a pluralistic society.”

Sweeping through American history, Obama noted that some of the founding fathers had copies of the Quran, and Thomas Jefferson specifically cited Muslims among the faiths that have religious freedom in America. Obama also tried to stress similarities with the country’s majority faith.

“Whoever wants to enter paradise, the Prophet Muhammad taught, let him treat people the way he would like to be treated,” Obama said. “For Christians like myself, that sounds familiar.”

Obama has made several calls for religious tolerance since the Paris and San Bernardino attacks prompted new fears about Islamic terrorism — fears that Obama says have been exploited for political gain. In recent months, he’s decried bigotry against Muslims at speeches about black enslavement and the Holocaust, not to mention his State of the Union address. Obama is likely to hit on similar themes at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, Earnest said Tuesday.

Earnest tried to tamp down suggestions that Obama was speaking out only because of the political campaign.

“It’s unfortunate that some people might perceive our commitment to those values cheapened by cynical political tactics from some Republicans,” Earnest said Tuesday. “The president is not going to stand for that.”

However, Earnest acknowledged, “The fact that his visit is taking place in the current political context is obvious to everyone. So even a subtle reference will be immediately recognizable to all of you that are such close observers of the president’s speeches.”

Indeed, it was Trump’s call for barring Muslims’ entry into the U.S. that prompted Obama’s foray into the 2016 discussion in December.

Although Obama generally avoids calling out the candidates by name, he’s made several pleas — in soaring speeches that extol American ideals — that Americans not repeat past errors by succumbing to bigotry. And in an interview with Politico last month, Obama expressed hope that after an “expression of frustration, anger that folks like Trump and, to some degree, [Ted] Cruz are exploiting,” Republican voters will eventually “settle down.”

But on Wednesday, Obama spoke directly to Muslims, first in a closed-door roundtable with Muslim leaders, and then in an address from the Islamic Society’s prayer room.

“An attack on one faith is an attack on all our faiths, and when any religious group is targeted, we all have to speak up,” Obama said. “And we have to reject a politics that seeks to manipulate prejudice or bias and targets people because of religion. We have to make sure that hate crimes are punished, and that the civil rights of all faiths are upheld.”

Ahead of the president’s visit, the White House highlighted a National Security Council staffer, Rumana Ahmed, who wrote in a blog post that despite being taunted as a Muslim growing up in Maryland after the Sept. 11 attacks, she was nonetheless able to “pursue her dream and proudly serve her country as a head-covering Muslim American woman in the White House.”

Obama also took note of Muslim service members in the audience, as well as two Muslims in Congress: Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and André Carson (D-Ind.). And he noted that he is not the first politician to face inaccurate rumors about holding the Muslim faith.

“Thomas Jefferson’s opponents tried to stir things up by suggesting that he was a Muslim; so, I was not the first," Obama said. "No, it’s true. Look it up. I’m in good company.”

Obama has visited mosques in other countries, including the Sultan Hassan Mosque in Cairo on June 4, 2009. That same day, at Cairo University, Obama called for “a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world.”